Page 8 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
A moment later he spun on his heel and strode back inside. He had little patience for protracted spectacle; there were only two deaths he truly hungered to see.
Ash and Alina’s.
At night the thought visited him like a fevered dream: not merely conquest, but the delicious choreography of their downfall. He pictured confronting Alina, striking with a blade, watching her collapse and feeling the cold satisfaction of revenge fulfilled. He could scarcely imagine the things he would do to Ash.
‘Bring the drakonian girl to my chambers,’ Hagan ordered.
They had settled in the keep more than a week ago, rooting out the last remnants of the city that still dared to stand. The keep itself was a stern square edifice of red stone, perched high upon a hill that commanded the city of Maar. During one of his many sleepless nights, Hagan had discovered the small library the scholars had abandoned in their haste to flee. By candlelight he had lingered there, poring over brittle scrolls and forgottenhistories.
The legends spoke of the first descent of the Sun God upon mortal soil. It was said that he had arrived precisely where Maar now lay, and that the force of his presence tore the earth apart, leaving a vast chasm that later brimmed with rainwater spilling down from the lands of Fae. For centuries the lake had glimmered in reverence until it dried away, and in its place rose the city of Maar, built in homage to the divine visitation.
The chamber doors creaked open. Reclining in a wooden chair by the window, Hagan watched in silence as the drakonian woman was thrust into the room. Two witches hovered in her shadow, awaiting his word. He dismissed them with a casual flick of his hand.
For a long while he said nothing, merely studying her with a quiet, calculating interest. His hand drifted over the smooth dome of his shaved head before his gaze slid to the table, to the scattered papers he had left there.
‘Undress.’
Her fingers shook as she obeyed. Hagan did not look up at once, absorbed again in the lines of the scrolls, though he knew when she had completed the command. He despised how easily she yielded.
At last he raised his eyes. She had a pleasing enough form, though thin, the mark of servitude. Yet when he studied her face again, disappointment flickered through him. She was not Alina. Not even close.
‘Get on the bed.’
Her lip trembled; she shook her head once, a fragile denial, but the instant his purple eyes pinched inwards she hurried forward and lay down, the sound of her submission small in the hush of the chamber.
Hagan returned to his scrolls and read as if the world outsidecould wait. Nearly an hour passed; the drakonian lay pale and still beneath the candlelight, every slight tremor of her body a private entertainment to him. He struck a bell for his supper and ate with deliberate calm, barely glancing up. Her shaking pleased him, so small a thing to provoke such satisfaction.
When he pushed back his chair at last he moved to the bed with the measured ease of a man who never hurried. She had not wet herself, to his mild surprise; many did, and he had come to expect the vulgar spectacle. He found himself bored, bored with the ritual of cruelty, bored with practising on unwilling girls while the woman he truly desired remained stubbornly beyond his reach. He wanted this to be Alina. He wanted, more than anything, to trail his fingers along her jaw one last time.
He took up the blade he had left upon the table and crossed the room. The girl’s eyes widened; she attempted to scramble away, but Hagan’s blood-magic tightened about her like iron, locking her limbs as if winter had seized them.
He would not drag this out.
Before a cry could escape her lips, the blade struck with merciless precision, pinning her head back against the bed. Silence claimed the chamber in an instant—the thrashing ceased, the breathless struggle ended.
Hagan’s brow furrowed. Already gone?
Cursing under his breath, he wrenched the blade free and set it once more to her lifeless form. This time he lingered, slow and deliberate, tracing cruel lines as though the body were nothing more than parchment for his knife. He worked with cold precision, desecrating what remained until his grim art was complete.
‘Hang her from the wall,’ Hagan ordered when Theodora returned to clear away the ruin. ‘Let any fool who still dares set foot in this blasted place see what becomes of those who defyus.’
He paid little mind to the quick flash of pleasure that crossed Theodora’s face as she glanced at the corpse. A small part of him approved, though in truth, Hagan liked little and trusted less.
‘We have news,’ she said before he could stride off in a fury. He waited, deliberately. ‘Your sister Vera has fallen. The northern covens await your command.’
He found, with a mild surprise, that the report stirred no grief. Vera had been a vessel for Eris; when a god left a mortal frame, the flesh followed. By his hand two sisters were dead, and the hollowness that should have been sorrow was absence instead.
No, not quite absence.
Beneath the cold, there was a faint ember of satisfaction. They had never loved him, never made room for him in their quiet circles; they had been the triumvirate that smothered him, the household that took the mother he had loved. He would answer their contempt with fire.
‘Send a message,’ Hagan said, voice smooth as a blade. ‘Keep the northern witches in place for now. We shall use them. The Fae lands are cradled between our forces; their position will serve us well.’
Theodora inclined her head. A thin green light kindled on her palm; at its bidding the body lifted, obedient as a dark marionette, and followed her from Hagan’s chamber into the corridors beyond.
Hagan drifted back towards the desk, then altered his course, drawn instead to the window. Lowering himself onto the stone ledge, he let his gaze wander to the far side, picturing Ash seated opposite. It was always that way between them—two friends on either side of the same frame, looking outward as they spoke of everything and nothing.
He could see him as clearly as if he still breathed. The golden boy, sunlight in his hair, turning to him with that effortless, careless smile as though the world were whole and unbroken, as though nothing could ever fall apart.
